WfMC Standards and Working GroupsPublications
and working documents on standards still under
development reside on the members only pages. If you have a need to have an
early view of standards before they are published, these can now be made available on
application to the WfMC Secretariat.
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down for General Publications)

Audience:The intended audience for this document
is primarily vendor organizations who seek to implement the XML Process
Definition Language (XPDL) of the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC),
or using it as a file format for the Business Process Modeling Notation
(BPMN) of the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI). It may also
be of interest to those seeking to assess conformance claims made by
vendors for their products. Comments should be addressed to the Workflow Management Coalition.

Purpose:XPDL version 2.0 is back-compatible with XPDL version
1.0, and is intended to be used as a file format for BPMN. The original
purpose of XPDL is maintained and enhanced by this second version of the
specification. The XPDL and the BPMN specifications address the same
modeling problem from different perspectives. XPDL provides an XML file
format that can be used to interchange process models between tools.
BPMN provides a graphical notation to facilitate human communication
between business users and technical users, of complex business
processes.There are a number of elements that are present in BPMN version 1.0 but
were not present in XPDL version 1.0. Those had been incorporated into
this version of XPDL.The WfMC has identified five functional interfaces to a process or
workflow service as part of its standardization program. This
specification forms part of the documentation relating to “Interface
one” - supporting Process Definition Import and Export. This interface
includes a common meta-model for describing the process definition (this
specification) and also a companion XML schema for the interchange of
process definitions.

Background Information
AWSP (Asynchronous Web Services Protocol ) June 2002 (Historical Reference ONLY)(awsp-2002-04-05.zip).( zipped
497kb.)
In April 2002 at the San Francisco meeting of wfmc, the AWSP
(Asynchronous Web Services Protocol was presented, discussed, and found
to meet all the goals that had been identified at the Muenster meeting.
These goals specifically were (Layer on top of SOAP, Use XML Schema
representation, Multiple Observers, Subscribe/Unsubscribe,Set process
instance data). Since that time: this work has evolved
into the ASAP technical committee of OASIS, and has been entirely
subsumed by that other work. Please use this document only for
historical reference, and refer instead to the ASAP working group (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=asap)
for current implementation information.

InteroperabilityWf-XML
Binding
Version 1.1
FINAL (read
press release)Document
Number WFMC-TC-1023 (Zipped WinWord 629k)Document
Number WFMC-TC-1023 (PDF Format 211K)The XML language described
herein, Wf-XML, can be used to implement the three models of
interoperability defined in the Interoperability Abstract
specification. Specifically, chained workflows, nested workflows and
parallel-synchronized workflows are supported. Wf-XML supports these
three types of interchanges both synchronously and asynchronously, and
allows messages to be exchanged individually or in batch operations.
Furthermore, this specification describes a language that is
independent of any particular implementation mechanism, such as
programming language, data transport mechanism, OS/hardware platform,
etc. However, because HTTP is expected to be the most prevalent data
transport mechanism used for interchanging Wf-XML messages, this
specification provides a description of how Wf-XML messages are to be
interchanged using this protocol.

This document represents a specification for a language based on the
eXtensible Markup Language (XML) designed to model the data transfer
requirements set forth in the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)’s
Interoperability Abstract specification. This language will be used as
the basis for concrete implementations of the functionality described
in the Interoperability Abstract supporting the WfMC’s Interface 4, as
defined by the Workflow Reference Model .

This version (1.1) of
the Wf-XML specification is fully backward compatible with its
previous version (1.0). For the sake of clarity, the term
“backward-compatible” is used here to mean that all changes made to
the specification in this version have been additive, making it is a
superset of version 1.0. For a more detailed explanation of
conformance implications, see section 6 Conformance.

Interoperability Wf-XML
Binding (May 8, 2000) Wf-XML
Binding Document Number WFMC-TC-1023Wf-XML v1.0 DTD (for developers)This document represents a specification for an
XML language designed to model the data transfer requirements set
forth in the Workflow Management Coalition’s Interoperability
Abstract specification (WFMC-TC-1012) [1]. This language will be used
as the basis for concrete implementations of the functionality
described in the abstract in order to support the WfMC’s Interface 4
(as defined by the workflow reference model [2]).(41 pages
WinWord, Zipped 174KB)

Conformance DocumentThe discussion of technical and organizational
issues relating to standards conformance has been moved to a
web-based forum, kindly hosted by Michael zur Muehlen. Access the
forum at
www.workflow-research.de/Forums. Once you register for the
forum, send an email to
[email protected] and Michael will immediately add
you to the group WfMC Members, which gives you full access
right to the members-only discussion groups.

The Workflow
Reference Model: 10 Years On (570kb PDF) February 2004
David Hollingsworth, Fujitsu Services, United Kingdom; Chair,
Technical Committee, WfMC.
extracted from Workflow Handbook
2004Last year saw the 10th anniversary of the
Workflow Reference Model. This short paper reassesses the relevance of
the Model in the current context of Business Process Management. It
discusses the principles behind the Model, its strengths and weakness
and examines how it remains relevant to the industry today. It concludes
by introducing a number of considerations required to establish a “BPM
Reference Model” and discusses how the various overlapping standards in
this space may be categorised.

ASAP/Wf-XML 2.0 Cookbook in Workflow
Handbook 2004Keith D. Swenson, Fujitsu Software CorporationThis paper is for those who have a process
engine of some sort, and wish to implement a Wf-XML interface. At first,
this may seem like a daunting task because the specifications are thick
and formal. But, as you will see, the basic capability can be
implemented quickly and easily. This paper will take you through the
basics of what you need to know in order to quickly set up a foundation
and demonstrate the most essential functions. The rest of the
functionality can rest on this foundation. The approach is to do a small
part of the implementation in order to understand how your particular
process engine will fit with the protocol.

Does Better Math Lead to
Better Business Processes? (November 2003)Why Business Process Management and its
predecessor, workflow management, are not simply an extension to the
theory of pi-calculus and why pi-calculus is not the only answer
to the BPM debate.
by Jon Pyke and Roger Whitehead

Workflow
BizTalk Framework™ Schema
DescriptionThis
schema defines a language used to
exchange information among Workflow Management Systems. Information marked
up in compliance with this language is used to initiate, monitor and
control business processes in/by remote systems.

White paper:
Stand-alone
and embedded workflow management systems.8 pages, PDF formatMichael Zur Muehlen and Rob Allen. March 10, 2000This paper distinguishes, at
a high level, the differences between workflow engines and simple
trigger routines. Its main function is to clarify the segmentation
between autonomous and embedded workflow deployment.

White
Paper - EventsDavid
Hollingsworth, ICL A&TC. 11 pages, WinWord. April
99.This document contains a proposed
approach for classifying and handling the processing associated with
Events. It includes proposals for extensions to I/Fs 1, 2/3 and 4 (and
potentially audit data which may be associated with particular event
occurrences). It builds upon the proposals originally made by Steve
Dworkin (May 1998) and earlier draft notes from Klaus DieterKreplin, Dave Holllingsworth and Mike Anderson.

Discussion
Paper -
A
Common Object Model
Document
Number - WfMC-TC-1023,
by David Hollingsworth, ICL A&TC. March 99. 16 pages,
WinWord.This document describes the current status of the WfMC standardization
program and identifies the current work on object related standards
which includes interface bindings for both OLE Automation and OMG/IDL
objects. The scope of the current Reference Model is discussed, plus
possible extensions to support a lower granularity component
architecture, internal to the workflow enactment service, as a
complement to existing work focused on the service functions provided
at the boundary of a workflow enactment service. This is postulated on
the basis of defining a common underlying object model which can be
mapped to the two important component architectures emerging in the
industry, the OMG object architecture and services and the ActiveX/DCOM
architecture.

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